‘Behind every painting you look at—or that your eye happens to fall upon—there is always something. Behind some there is the aura of time. I have seen paintings (though perhaps that is too grand a word—paintings) where what was depicted, and how it was depicted, would not have stirred any interest, but...

These were old pictures that had passed through many hands and many eras, and I simply felt time as rays passing through the layer of paint. I am not speaking of paintings by the masters; that is a story of its own. But contemporary artists—what is it that attracts us to them?

There are different standards and tastes. But here are several works by the Moscow artist Oleg Trofimov. For me, they are paintings of remembrance: memories I have invented of what may yet happen in life, but has already happened—in a book, in a film, in dreams. And all of this has merged with my own observations and feelings, and I remember these pastel flowers: the tenderness of their petals, their silkiness under the touch. But most importantly, behind each one there is some story; I know it, I feel it, and the painting fills with a special air and the light of time. Boats, yachts, the play of light on quiet ripples—this is within me, it has passed through me, and behind it are someone’s sensitive fingers touching the wood of a mast, someone’s voice attuned to the evening sea.

No! I could write at length in the same vein, but what remains are these color-and-light images of remembrance, flowing from the past into the future and leaving a feeling of peace. Something beautiful and trembling has happened, has taken place, and the memory of it is in these paintings. Or perhaps it still lies ahead!’